


this is how we get notorious

by angstandcaffeine



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, au where wynter is ever mentioned again, headcanon city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-30 04:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16757608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstandcaffeine/pseuds/angstandcaffeine
Summary: Saint Wynter is invited to the Notion's Feast of Patina party. She's not sure what she should expect, but it certainly isn't Vanya de la Vega.





	this is how we get notorious

_Hey there._

The Words on her forearm caught Wynter’s eye as she tied up her hair, like they did sometimes. Simple, short Words. They had been said to her a thousand times, and they would be said to her a thousand more. That was fine with Wynter. It was freeing-- she’d never figure out her soulmate because of the way she introduced herself. She could fall in love with whoever she wanted to, and never had to worry about whether or not they were her soulmate.

Okay, yeah, that was a lie. Large swathes of Wynter’s adolescence had been spent agonizing about not finding her soulmate. She had mostly made peace with it now, but you know. Only mostly. She still had a chance in the color, though. While most of her friends had a matte color, or the occasional metallic, Wynter’s Words were iridescent, a different color in each angle of the light. She took a little pride in that: whoever her soulmate was, she must be cool as hell. Hopefully. If she ever found out who.

“Whatever,” she muttered to herself, grabbing a jacket. She wasn’t going to have to think about soulmates tonight. She was headed off world -- the Divine Fleet had a holiday today, and while she didn’t 100% understand it, her acquaintance Korrin Kim invited her to come along to dinner when they realized they both knew the hosts. So she got dressed up, reveling in the opportunity to wear something other than her uniform: a dark silver jacket, a lace top, black jeans, and a pair of decent boots. After all, it was a Notion party; needing to run away quickly wasn’t completely out of the question.

She fussed with her hair in the mirror one more time, making a last effort to get it to stay in place. She knew it would slip, eventually, but it would work for now.

***

So, the evening hadn’t gone exactly how she’d expected. There was a lot of tension in the air that she didn’t quite understand. Wynter assumed her usual party position: leaning against the wall, drink in hand. She watched the mixed bag of guests weave in and out of the halls of The World Without End. Until, that is, she realized someone else was watching her.

She was about the same age as Wynter, dressed in white high-waisted pants and a fabulous violet coat. She was talking to a robot that looked a lot like a torch unit, but she stared over their shoulder at Wynter. When Wynter locked eyes with her, she smiled. Wynter quickly looked away, but her eyes found their way back to her. She said something to the robot, then walked away.

Well, walked away from the robot. She walked toward Wynter.

Wynter looked down into her drink, worried that she had come off as rude or snooping. But she seemed cheerful enough when she arrived in Wynter’s corner of the ship. “Hey there,” she said, lifting a hand in a small wave.

Oh wow, she was pretty. Her iridescent hair framed her face perfectly, cut just below her chin, and she was smiling at Wynter with big brown eyes, and hey did she just say hey there?

Uh, hey, this very cool girl just said hey there and her hair shines brighter than anything you’ve ever seen. And she’s still standing in front of you, waiting for you to say something, and hopefully it’ll be the right thing to say because she just said the Words on your arm and wouldn’t it be cool if you said her Words?

“Some party, huh?” she continued, kindly giving Wynter another opportunity to say something instead of just staring at her.

“This is not how I was expecting tonight to go,” Wynter admitted, finally snapping out of it.

She laughed, a bright laugh that made Wynter giggle too. Then she stuck out her hand. “I’m Vanya. Vanya de la Vega. It’s nice to meet you, as we would inevitably.”

Wynter’s heart pounded in her chest as she shook her hand. “Inevitably?”

She glanced around. “We’re the only two people here our age. It’s like gravity, we have to collide.”

Okay, not a soulmate thing. Deep breaths, Wynter. “I’d say Echo is close to us, but I’m pretty sure you automatically age ten years when you join the Notion.”

Vanya laughed again, and Wynter decided that whatever other bullshit happened tonight, it was worth it to hear that sound twice.

“What’s your name?” Vanya asked directly.

Right. Names. Those are important. “Saint Wynter.”

Vanya’s eyebrows raised at the title. “You’re not on duty, are you? Seems like every other paramilitary force in the system is here bickering.”

“Nope, not on duty.”

“Excellent.” Vanya slid into position next to her on the wall. “I bet you two cred somebody’s going to attempt a poisoning tonight.”

“Given the state of tonight, I bet you two cred somebody’s _already_ tried to poison someone tonight and fucked it up.”

Vanya snorted. “Oh, I like you.”

Wynter did her very best not to blush. “So, who’s the assassin?”

“What, you don’t immediately assume it’s the guy who wouldn’t even show up in person?”

“No, that’s way too obvious.”

“Grand Magnificent is the definition of obvious.”

“I’ve never met Grand. Maybe we should compare notes.”

“A good idea.”

And just like that, they were glued to each other’s side for the rest of the night. Vanya joined in Wynter’s people watching, squabbling over which one of the system’s heavy hitters was here to murder and which one was here to get murdered. Along the way, Wynter found out that Vanya lived in an abandoned amusement park and had brought along her friend Yam, who was in fact a torch unit.

Eventually, the formal dinner began. Vanya was seated across the table and a few seats down from Wynter — not close enough to have a conversation with, but close enough to steal a few glances at. Wynter spent probably too much of the time studying Vanya. She was dangerously charismatic, able to make just about anybody grin or blush. Once during the meal, Wynter caught Vanya eyeing her up the same way she had been just minutes earlier. Vanya smirked a little, not breaking her gaze. Wynter tried to hold steady, but she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She offered back a small smile. The nerves running through her body made her want to bounce up and down in her seat. 

Flirting was  _ really  _ not Wynter’s strong suit. 

When Vanya ditched the dinner to go play pool, she looked across the table at Wynter.  _ Come with me,  _ she seemed to say. When Wynter stood up out of her seat to follow, she could have sworn that a smile took over the annoyed expression on Vanya’s face for just a moment. 

By the time Wynter made it to the rec room, Vanya was already taking out her frustration on the pool balls, whacking them into various corners. Yam tried to play with her, but their digits didn’t bend in quite the right way to hold the cue. Instead, they wielded it like a batton, knocking the balls around with the wider end. 

“Oh, hi Wynter!” Yam looked up from the game. “We are playing the Ark pool variant. Would you like to play?”

“Sure,” Wynter said, grabbing a cue. “How do I play?”

“It’s just like pool,” they explained, “but a lot of us have trouble holding the cue, so you can hit whatever ball you want and you can hit it however you want.”

Wynter laughed. “Awesome.”

Vanya slammed a ball into the corner closest to Wynter. She jumped, making a small startled noise. “Better get going, Saint Wynter,” Vanya teased. “You’re already down by two.”

“Oh yeah, well,” Wynter stammered, trying to come up with a rebuttal. “Well, you better get going, because I’m going to run this table.”

“I hope your playing is better than your trash talking.” Vanya grinned. “For your own sake.”

They played several matches, and despite their boasting, Yam solidly beat Vanya and Wynter almost every round. Wynter’s losses could mostly be attributed to her lack of skill, but the fact that she kept getting distracted watching Vanya’s delicate hands hold the cue didn’t help either. The one time Wynter did win, she danced around the room, singing her own praises while Vanya rolled her eyes and Yam laughed. Of course, that meant that once Vanya finally won, she was twice as obnoxious with her celebration, climbing onto the pool table and declaring herself Queen of Pool.

At some point, Vanya gave Yam a pointed look that Wynter was fairly certain she wasn’t supposed to see. “I’m going to go find Gig,” Yam said quickly. “He can play with us and then we can play on teams!”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Vanya said, leaving Wynter no room to respond. “You go do that.”

Okay, look. Wynter may not have been the most people-smart person in the world, but she was fairly certain she knew what was going on at this point. She just, you know, had no clue how to act on that knowledge.

Vanya sat on the edge of the pool table, legs swinging. “So, what’s it like being a Saint?”   


Wynter laughed. “It’s exciting. Nothing like it used to be, I’m told, but still absolutely incredible.” She hopped up next to her, her fingers just millimeters away from where Vanya’s hand rested. She tried not to think about that, which of course made it impossible to think about anything else.

“Exciting, huh? What’s your Saint like?”

“Oh, she’s beautiful. Do you want to see pictures?” Wynter, in all her giddiness, completely forgot how precarious their position was. She turned to show Vanya a photo too quickly, smacking her arm into Vanya’s and knocking her backwards.

Vanya yelped. Without thinking, Wynter moved her arm around her to catch her. They sat for a moment like that, Vanya’s weight backwards, Wynter clutching her side, until Vanya smirked and grabbed Wynter’s jacket, pulling her down onto the table with her. “Gotcha!”

Wynter squealed as she hit the table. “Hey, mine was an accident!”

“Oh, sure it was.” Lying with their backs on the table now, their faces were extremely close. 

“I was trying to save you.” Wynter stared into Vanya's eyes, resisting the temptation to glance down at her lips.

“Oh yeah, death by pool table. How very noble of you, Saint Wynter.” She couldn’t explain it, but the title sounded so different when it came from Vanya. It made her heart pound and her stomach flutter and her face was  _ so _ close now and--

Nope. Abort mission. Wynter shot back up to a sitting position. Before Vanya could do anything, Yam came back into the room.

“Hey, Vanya? I, uh, couldn’t find Gig, but the passive aggression has turned into actual aggression, and we should probably go.”

Vanya pulled up a clock. “Yam’s right,” she sighed. “We need to go. But this has been a lot of fun, Wynter.” Then she paused, brow furrowed. “Not, you know, all of this,” she waved her hands in the air, gesturing to the rest of the ship, “but just, like, the parts where we played pool and hung out. It was nice.”

“I had fun too,” Wynter said, a soft smile on her face.

“Well then.” Vanya took a deep breath. “See you around, Saint Wynter.” She gave her a salute and a wink. And she walked away, out of the room, presumably to the hangar.

Walked away, to be seen who knows when.

“Wait,” Wynter called out before she had even realized that she’d done it.

Vanya turned, cocking an eyebrow. “What?”

Wynter steeled herself and rolled up her sleeve. “Look, I know I have super common Words,” she said, “and this doesn’t have to be like, A Thing, if you don’t want it to be. But you are the first person I’ve ever met that the color makes  _ any  _ kind of sense for.”

Vanya stepped forward to take a look. For once, she didn’t seem to have anything to say. The silence was unnerving, and Wynter was certain that she had fucked up. Then, she slipped an arm out of her jacket, shoulder facing Wynter, head turned away. 

“I wasn’t sure,” she said. “But I knew I’d be able to find you again, if it was true.”

Wynter’s breath caught in her throat- not at the Words, which she was only eighty percent sure she had actually said, but at the icy blue color. “That’s my… Can I look?” Vanya nodded, and Wynter closed the gap between them. She ran her fingertips over the Words.  _ This is not how I was expecting tonight to go.  _ Vanya watched her as she puzzled over the text. “That’s my color, that’s the color of my mech.” She looked up into Vanya’s eyes. “If I said that, that’s me.”

“Well, you did, so,” Vanya smiled. “Hey there, soulmate.”

Oh, Wynter blushed bright red at that. “Hi.”

They smiled at each other for a minute, until Vanya finally broke the silence. “I do, uh, have to go get on this spaceship though.”

“Right, right, shit.”

“We can give you a ride though, if you want? Where are you heading?” She laughed. “Oh my god, you’re my soulmate and I don’t even know what planet you live on.”

“How the fuck were you planning on finding me?” Wynter giggled. “Skein.”

Vanya’s face twisted. “Okay, that’s not… the most out of the way.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to, I can get myself home.”

“No, it’s not a big deal—“

“We can catch up later. I don’t wanna be a burden.”

“Wynter.”

“What?”

Vanya reached out, touching her arm. “Please get on my spaceship.”

Wynter looked up into her deep brown eyes. She could have sworn they actually twinkled at her. “Yeah, okay.”

Vanya grinned. 

They walked in giddy silence, as close as they could be without actually touching, until Vanya said, “You know, I’ve read these Words over and over, but I never imagined they’d be said to me in this context.”

“Oh yeah?”

“‘This is not how I expected tonight to go’? Yeah, I definitely assumed the situation was going to be a lot more badass.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint.”

“Oh no, you don’t disappoint." Wynter refused to look over, but she was pretty sure Vanya was checking her out as she said that. "I just… have a tendency to get into shit.”

“Would have never pegged you as a troublemaker,” Wynter said, sarcastically.

Vanya groaned. “Don't remind me. I cannot believe my soulmate is a fucking cop.”

“Excuse me?”

Vanya walked into the vessel, flipping switches to prepare the ship for departure. “Yam, Wynter’s coming with us.”

“Awesome!” chirped Yam.

“I’m not a cop!”

Vanya raised an eyebrow at her, not saying anything. Yam slid over to her, speaking as quietly as they could. “Vanya, I’ve also enjoyed hanging out with Wynter tonight, but if she’s a cop, there are at least four reasons why we should not take her with us on this ship.”

“I can hear you.”

“It’s okay buddy,” Vanya said, patting them on the back, “she’s alright. We’ll work on it.” Vanya strode over to Wynter. “You should put on your seat belt.”

“The Saints have been fractured beyond belief, they’re hardly even a thing anymore. And we’re also, like, just a bunch of artists! I used to make tulips!”

Vanya huffed. “Yam, are you good to take off on your own?” They gave her a thumbs up. “Great. You, come here.” Vanya grabbed Wynter by the wrist and pulled her into the supply closet.

“What are you doing?” Wynter asked as Vanya shut the door and clicked on the light.

“Tulips?”

“Yeah, I’m from The Garden? I specialize in bulbs.”

Vanya smiled, just a little bit. “That’s actually really cute.”

“Uh, thanks,” Wynter felt her face blush. “Now, are you going to give me that lecture you dragged me in here for?”

“Oh, no,” Vanya said, her turn to blush, “I dragged you in here to ask if I could kiss you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

And before Vanya could actually ask her question, Wynter leapt forward and did it herself, pushing down her nervous energy and turning it into excitement. Vanya made a little noise of surprise in her mouth. She carded her fingers through Wynter’s hair, grasping for a hold. It was a messy, earnest kiss, broken up by a knock on the closet door. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Yam said from the other side of the door, “but I was never actually given a destination.”

Vanya sighed, resting her head on Wynter’s shoulder. “Skein. We’re going to Skein.”

Wynter giggled, holding her face in her hand, as heavy footsteps walked away from the closet. 

Vanya rolled her eyes towards the door. “Fucking Yam.” She turned her attention back to her newfound… whatever her and Wynter were going to be. “Stop laughing,” she teased, softly. “I can’t kiss you if you’re laughing.”

All that did was make Wynter laugh harder.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "perfect places" by lorde, because i know who i am
> 
> you can find me yelling about these good gen z space lesbians on twitter @angstcaffeine


End file.
